Project Description

The Florida Panther Refuge is a 26,400-acre animal refuge in South Western Florida. Although created and protected by the Endangered Species Act, the implications of the development that occurs around the refuge are something that need to be continually assessed by conservation managers due to the borderless nature of habitats. This project consisted of creating a spatiotemporal impact assessment of how different development scenarios could affect the various species residing in the Florida Panther Refuge, at both a species and landscape scale. The project required a combination of geospatial and geostatistical analyses to capture the multiple intersections between the diversity of land use and land cover types that were analyzed in the future alternative scenarios, and the critical habitats of species selected by a panel of regional experts. This project was undertaken to assist Refuge managers in their task of completing an updated Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the Refuge.

The necessity to create long-lasting objectives addressing inequality is emphasized throughout the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This implies that income growth is not the only important measure for this goal. The roles of infrastructure, wage, social protection policies, and opportunities are noted as key contributors to this goal of increased equality. By measuring and quantifying inequality in GeoAdaptive, we understand how well programs or policies promote social justice and how these strategies might be supported by accessibility to infrastructure to reduce inequality and improve social development.